Hi, I really love your art! I'm trying to teach myself to draw and I'm hoping to develop a clear, cartoony style like yours. Do you think I would be better off starting with a more realistic style to establish fundamentals? Is that what you did?

I think it’s really smart to learn to draw from life before you cartoon. You can absolutely learn by aping and imitating other cartoonists - everyone does it, it’s unavoidable in the echo chamber of comics - but studying from life as well (contour drawing, rendering the same chair 50 times, live model sketching) will do a lot to help improve your ability to interpret the real world into a “cartoony” style. It’s something I don’t do often enough, but I did fail my drawing class in college twice before I passed, so I got thrice the experience!

Draw a chair 40 times as many different ways as possible, and you will be awesome at drawing chairs. It’s hard to have a well-defined cartoon style. Simplicity is difficult. You have to convey personality, shape, weight, tone, etc through 1/20th the information. The more information YOU have, the better suited you are to choose what lines/colours/shadows are vital. Build it up to break it down, so to speak.

I’ve been watching Becca Tobin develop a person style over the last few years and she sketches like crazy, from life and from her imagination. She has a really well-defined style now. It’s super recognizable. It came from a lot of work and it’s something I admire like crazy / wish I did more often!

Summery: With yours and Deans first child on the way, Dean decided to recruit Sam’s help and build a car seat to surprise you. Too bad building a car seat isn’t as easy as it looks.

Dean x Reader

Warnings: swearing.

Word count: 695

A/N: anon request

You walked around the bunker, checking in each room for the boys but each room you checked was coming up empty. There was one last place you hadn’t looked.

“Oh for god sakes Sammy!” you heard Dean yell from outside followed by a loud bang and a string of curse words that flowed smoothly from the green eyed hunters mouth.

Rushing out the door as fast as your legs could carry you (which lets be honest, with your swollen belly, you weren’t moving too fast) a smile crept across you face as you assessed the beautiful scene that lay out before you.

Dean and Sam were both beside the Impala, a mess of random plastic parts spread across the ground, a big cardboard box that read ‘Baby’s First Car Seat!’ in bright red letters sat behind them.

“Well if you didn’t throw out the instructions Dean!” Sam yelled at his brother, neither one noticing your presence at first.

“It’s a car seat Sam! I didn’t think it would be like build the fucking enterprise!”

“Everything okay out here?” you asked cutting in before the boys could argue any further.

Dean and Sam’s head whipped up to look at you in surprise.

“Y/N! uh… we were- we just- we wanted it to be a surprise.” Dean said sheepishly as he rubbed the back of his neck, something he often did when he was nervous or embarrassed.

“How s’it coming along?” you drawled walking over to the boys and leaned against the Impala to rest your already tired feet. Being pregnant was a real pain in the ass sometimes.

“Great!”

“Terrible!” Dean and Sam yelled at the same time heads whipping to look at each other in annoyance.

“You two hunt monsters for a living, you fight creepy, crawly creatures, things that go bump in the night, you two literally stopped the apocalypse… but you cant put a simple car seat together?”

“Uh- Dean threw out the instructions.” Sam said lamely, pointing to Dean in blame.

“I thought we were building a car seat not the damn-”

“Enterprise yeah, yeah.” Sam said as he waved his hand at Dean.

Dean glared at Sam as he stood up, dusting his jeans off he leaned towards you to give you a quick kiss on the lips.

“How’s out little princess doing?” Dean asked as he placed his warm hands on your protruding belly, thumbing small circles as he looked down.

“What? No! you just sit back and do whatever it is that you pregnant women do.” Dean said casually resulting in a loud groan from Sam.

“Dude,”

“Hey, I can figure it out!”

You couldn’t help but smile, it was yours and Deans first child and you could tell he was freaking out, he had already ‘baby proofed’ the bunker the first night you found out you were pregnant and even insisted on building a crib the next day!

“Dean, you’ve built the Impala from the ground up, you’ve made homemade bombs, you even made your own emf reader…” you patted the plastic car seat and smiled “it’s a car seat.”

“There must be parts missing” Dean grumbled as he knelt down and rested on the back of his heels, you let out a soft chuckle as you watched the great Dean Winchester be bested by a child’s car seat. In his defence, he was trying his best. He went with you to every doctors appointment and baby classes, he even bought baby books!

“I say we just take a break!” Sam groaned again, running his hands through his hair.

“No Sam, we can finish this!”

Damn Dean and his stubbornness.

“Come on, come in for drinks and a snack.” you offered walking towards the bunker doors and looking back at the two brothers.

“Fine, just for a minute though!“

You watched as Dean stood, eyeing the car as he passed and giving the ‘I’m watching you’ hand gesture. Boy was this gonna be a long pregnancy.

Let’s save each other from falling. I will fall for you and you fall for me. Don’t you think that it can be the best fall ever recorded in this whole world? Falling in love with you is not a difficult task. Your simplicity really captivates me. The way you flash that enchanting smile is really something. The way you talk those sensible insights, the way you walk as if you’re in a catwalk, the way you put your hands to mine… darling, they are so good and really stirred my heart.

I know that falling in love with me is such a difficult task but I am willing to wait for you. I’ll wait. And if you’re about to fall, don’t be afraid. Do hesitate. Just call me, and I’ll be there to catch you. And I won’t make you regret that.

A rainbow with bright colors at first sight reveals itself being made from barbwire. A symbol of paradise made from a symbol for protetcion and limitation. Paradise seems to be protected by a layer of limitation as well. The initial attraction turns into repulsion.